THIS TAPE HAS BEEN RECORDED ON THE 8TH OF AUGUST 1978 AT 17 CORNMILL TERRACE, BARNOLDSWICK. THE INFORMANT IS BILLY BROOKS AND THE INTERVIEWER IS STANLEY GRAHAM.
R-Johnny aye, he were there, he were lifting wi’ sommat.
Who were that? Johnny Pickles?
R-Aye, Johnny and me were good friends. Aye, we were. I went in’t Stars one night, it’s a long time since, and he were there, he says come on, Have a whisky, what tha wants. Aye, we were good friends me and Johnny, aye.
Well, you’d know Johnny when he started in Barlick for Henry Brown wouldn’t you.
R-Yes, I knew them when they first come. I knew Henry Brown, I knew him at Earby, when they left Earby and come here, Henry Brown, th’old chap. And then there were Billy Brown, he lived at Horton, he died aye, one o’t sons, he lived at Horton for a while. Johnny were apprenticed to Henry Brown at Earby at first. Johnny says Old Henry Brown, he were one of the old school. Aye, they were, they were good mechanics were Browns in them days, they made a good job.
They still do you know.
R-I don’t think they do much now do they, they have no engines.
Aye, they’ve still got five.
R-Have they five?
Aye, and I’ve just found them another one. Oh aye, they still do a good job, they still do a good job Billy.
R-I used to get them to do jobs to t’tape you know. Putting new ends in the rollers and all sorts. I could allus tell when Johnny Pickles had done my job. I told him and all, I says You allus finish off. When you’ve a roller in’t lathe you allus put sandpaper on and shines it up. He says Th’art reight. It were reight were that, I says I allus knows when you’ve finished wi’ a job Johnny. Aye, you see the rollers ‘ud have a bit of mouldy on them and he’d shine all that off. It come back like a new un, I telled him, it suited Johnny did that. It did that, but it were reight. T’others ‘ud think, Bloody mould, they’ve getten the bugger on, they mun get it off. They’d just put the ends in and that were it, aye.
How about party politics, in t’parliamentary job, did you agree with that Billy?
R-Well, I do in some ways but I don’t in another. You know, the opposition opposes no matter what it is, they oppose it and nowt gets done, aye. Unless they’ve a big majority in the House you see. Look what they’re doing now, they’re bowing down nearly to these here Independents and Liberals just to keep ‘em in office. That’s what they’re doing now. Of course you see when you get a lot of men round a table, there’s allus some dissension between them you know, they’re never unanimous, there’s allus one or two that upsets the apple cart.
When the socialists were starting up Billy, you can remember when they first started, were you ever tempted to be a socialist?
R-Oh no, I never gave it a thought. No, I’ve studied nationalisation and I don’t like it. No, I don’t like it a bit because it’s a big waste of money. Two men in one job, ‘We’re all right, t’government’ll muck us out’, and all that, no.
But in the early days Billy… mind you they were talking about nationalisation then I know, but did you never think that happen t’socialist job ‘ud be all right for the working feller?
R-Well I don’t know, I don’t know where it has been [good for the working man], can you tell me where that has been? No, you see gas and electricity, they’ve been declaring big profits haven’t they? Aye, but who’s paying for it? They’ve kept putting it up. You could make a business pay if you could plank it on like that couldn’t you? You see when they first come out they said we want the benefits that come out of this business for the people, but id doesn’t, no. You see they have a monopoly. They can pop the price on and then there’s two men to one job. There’s vans up and down, running about wi’ nowt in. Happen a gas meter in or sommat like that. That’s all what goes on wi’ ‘em. When we had to be careful wi’ t’ratepayer’s money we daren’t buy a van at £250, we daren’t buy it, no.
Aye, well they’d have had to ride round on bikes then Billy.
[Billy is obviously talking about his experience on the Council when they ran the gas works.]
R-There’s half a dozen vans flying about today and look at t’price of electricity. They used to preach if there were any profit it ‘ud be given back to the consumer but it never is and never will do, it never will because they starts with their big schemes and spends it.
Now Billy, you’ll be able to remember the days when it wasn’t the Labour Party, it were ILP and SDP, you’ll be able to remember that won’t you.
R-Aye, Independent Labour, aye well you see the Labour Party sprang from the Liberal Party you know. Now in’t Labour Party today there’s a fringe of communism among it. They aren’t declared communists but they have that leaning towards communism you see.
Can you remember when the Communist Party started in Barnoldswick?
R-Well I don’t know, I can’t say, I’ve forgotten now you know. You know a lot of these communists, if they had to say in Russia what they say here they’d disappear into Siberia.
Aye, th’art happen reight theer.
R-I’m certain because they can’t afford to let ‘em stump up and down the country you see, it’s against ‘em. So consequently they have to liquidate them you see. Now here, you can say what you like you see. If you want to be a candidate you can, as the electors put you in, if you want.
So when you come to think about it, there’d be a lot of men that thought the same as you. There’d be a lot of men that were the same way of thinking as you, a lot of working men and all. I mean you’re father was a Conservative wasn’t he?
R-Well, at one time he were a big Liberal, a big liberal, aye.
So there’d be a lot of men in the unions that weren’t socialists.
R-Oh yes. You see, at these conferences, these union executives, they’re putting in block votes and there might be many a hundred among that block vote that wouldn’t vote for them you know. Well, that’s wrong.
Did you ever contract out of the levy, you know, the union Labour Party levy. Did you ever contract out Billy?
R-Well, to tell you the truth I never paid a union a halfpenny in me life.
Is that reight?
R-No, I never!
Well that’s a surprise Billy because I thought that you had a job to be a taper unless you were in the union.
R-No, there weren’t a union for tapers then. No, there were nothing. When I think, it happened about the time I were finishing. They were coming round to getting ‘em in. Aye, they come from Nelson.
Well, I’ll be damned, I thowt it were earlier than that.
R-But I says, I says ‘Well, I’ve been in taping for thirty years and I’ve allus getten, I’ve been fortunate happen, but I’ve allus getten what I’ve wanted. And it’s a funny thing but I always did. When I wanted owt I says to t’boss, I says ‘I’m underpaid!’ I says So and So gets so and so, I popped a bit on you know. He says well, I’ll enquire and if I find out thart reight we’ll make it reight. So I got that, and he comes to me in a fortnight and I thought I’m bahn to have another do at him but he come to me and he says Thart reight. He made it reight, it made about eight bob a week difference, eight bob were a lot then. So I says [to the union] I’ve allus getten what I wanted, I’ll finish me time out now without. You know I were thinking of going to Blackpool. Well, t’boss, he were sorry when I went, manager told me they’d been talking in the office and they said they were sorry I was going.
You were working at Westfield then?
R-Well I were leaving you see.
So you worked at Westfield then Billy, you taped at Westfield all the time did you?
R-Aye, from ‘em starting in 1911 up to 1943. Aye, of course we used to talk straight to one another did me and the boss you know.
When you say ‘The Boss’, who were that, one o’t lads?
R-Well, in later days it were th’eldest son made into t’boss. Th’old chap kept in’t background.
What were th’eldest son’s name?
R-Chris.
That’s Christopher Brooks.
R-I once telled him, Tha’ll either win or draw. He says I shall win. So I buggered off back to t’tape and left him, we used to fall out a bit like that you know. But he’d come up again after an hour or two after all reight, it were finished wi’. Play hell happen sometimes and then bugger off and then come back and he were all reight after, aye. Well, everybody’s reight as long as they work to their conscience, do as your conscience tells you, you’re reight in th’eyes of God, aye. But if you don’t work to your own conscience you aren’t reight you see.
You’re reight but has everyone got a conscience Billy?
R-They will have only they don’t listen to it you see. They don’t, they shove it to one side for their own particular purpose you see, aye. They shut their ears to it.
[Billy drops his matches and we had to look for them.] Here you are Billy, they’re on the floor here on your right.
R-There isn’t so damned many in them when I get ‘em!
No, you’re right about that [conscience] me Dad used to say something about that and I’ve never forgotten it. He always used to say that many a time when there were things he’d done and things he had to do and he always said his biggest job weren’t convincing other people that he were right, it were convincing himself.
R-Well, aye , aye. He’s a point there.
Aye he said once I’d done that he said he were all reight.
R-That’s reight, yes, well he were going to his conscience. Now it doesn’t mean to say that because you followed your conscience that you’d allus be reight. You see you may not be. But if you’ve gone according to your conscience you’re reight in a way.
Yes, you’re morally right.
R-According to the way you’ve looked at it. The angle you’ve looked at a thing you see, you’re reight.
I see what you mean Billy. I understand what you mean.
R-But in’t nationalised industries there isn’t that incentive, they know they’re reight you know. They know they’re reight and they’re working for a good firm so there’s no incentive. Now look at Silentnight, you’ve to work at Silentnight, there’s allus somebody looking round to see if you’re doing sommat. But there isn’t in them nationalised industries, same as Rolls Royce and all of them. But Silentnight there’s allus someone knocking about. Consequently t’wheels allus going you see. That’s the way it is. That’s the difference between a nationalised industry and t’other.
And would you say Billy that it ‘ud be true to say that the biggest part of working men need someone to keep ‘em going?
R-Aye they do, yes. Robinson Brooks once come up to me, he used to come talking to me did th’old chap you know, How are you going on. Like. Well, he says, I’ve just come…. Folk you know, a lot of ‘em, you’ve to watch ‘em he says. They aren’t all alike but some has to be watched or they’ll do nowt, he says. He says You’ve to keep ‘em doing and he were reight, aye. He says I’m not alluding to you. No, I were allus alike, if t’boss came in I didn’t run up and down like a bloody fool same as some on ‘em. As if they were doing all t’work in’t shop. I went on me own way all the time you see. But some on ‘em, when t’boss is there they’d like, you know it’s all go, and then when he goes away the buggers are doing nowt. Now they play heck about bosses but if you didn’t act strict they’d slack would a lot of folk. Same as getting ‘em in, of a morning, when they start. If you let ‘em trail in they’d gradually trail in at all times in a morning. ‘Oh, he never says owt, it’s all reight aye’. They pay so much a year for power and they want them looms running. If you let someone come five or ten minutes late, in a week that’s half an hour gone. Now t’bosses get a bad name because they have to be a bit strict you see. But as I’ve getten older I’ve seen a lot of that and I know why they have to do it. There were some on us a bit too bad I know.
Yes, I were just going to say Billy, I find this very interesting. I agree with what you say but when you start thinking about it some of the bosses, they just went over the edge a bit didn’t they? You know yourself that in the early days a lot of the manufacturers were making a lot of money very easily and they had people working for them who were in fact in very very poor circumstances.
R-Oh aye.
It was very unfair in a way, but would you say that over the years with the growth of the unions and people getting better educated would you say that things have levelled out a bit now, and I’m not talking about nationalised industries here. I’m talking about private enterprise. Would you say that things were working about reight now, you know, people are getting what they should out of the job.
R-Well, they’re getting more brass but they’ve getten so they can’t control folk today. There is no bosses, you aren’t a boss today, you can’t sack a chap for doing wrong.
No but I think like at Silentnight they manage to keep them well under the thumb theer don’t they.
R-Well yes they do but they pay a good wage.
Yes they do but you’re expected to work.
R-Well, what is there wrong about that?
Nothing at all Billy, nothing at all, I agree with you.
R-But that doesn’t pertain to nationalised industries. They’re ower manned. Because there isn’t that incentive to show a profit for the shareholders. You see you might have a thousand pound in a business and you want to see something for it. You can get six to nine percent in’t bank, in’t building society. Well, you’re risking a thousand pounds to build a factory to find work for folk, you want sommat for it you see. That’s the point.
I’ll give you an example, I was talking to Ernie Roberts the other night and he was telling me about when he worked for Cairns and Lang when they were at Calf Hall.
R-Fernbank I thing they’d be.
Right, well he was working at Calf Hall, it’d be about 1932 and he had some bad warps in. He had four looms and this particular week he said I stood at them looms all week and I’d one piece off, six shillings were one piece and his stamp [national insurance] was one shilling and ninepence and he went home with four shillings and threepence for a week’s work in 1932. he said That sort of thing can’t happen now. He was talking about very much the same thing that you talk about and the thing that strikes me is this, do you think that some of the bitterness from the old days, when people really thought they were badly done to, has hung on? Are there still traces of that left, people thinking Oh, t’bosses are all right, they’re making their money, this that and the other. How long does it take for memories of the bad times, such as there were then, to wear off?
R-Well, that generation has to die off you see and then t’others doesn’t know about it. There isn’t a lot knows about that now, you know, them old times. There’s a very few percentage of folk knows that.
It’s a thing that’s struck me a lot you know while I’ve been doing these tapes. For instance, Ernie had two brothers, now his eldest brother and him are both bow-legged because they had rickets, you know, with malnutrition, and yet his youngest brother’s all right. And Ernie said something to me one night, he said You know none of the Nutters were bow-legged. You know, as much as to say they’d never gone hungry and that sort of thinking has always stuck in his head and it’s understandable. But you know it makes me wonder how long that sort of thing hangs on.
R-You know, you’ll hear a lot of folks, socialists, preaching about Equality For All and all that sort of bullshit. If you read the Bible that so and so he sent all his sons out wi’ one golden piece, sent ‘em out into the world and one of his sons came back wi’ all t’lot. T’other had, they weren’t fit. Aye, it applies today does that.
Yes, well, all men aren’t equal are they, I mean, that’s impossible isn’t it, there’s good men and bad men. Good workers and bad workers.
R-But there’s good men for industry you see. That has foresight you see. And there’s men that’ll be connected wi’ them firms that knows nowt but there you have it. Now look at Churchill, he had foresight had Churchill. He says Russia in’t future, and he mentioned that, aye he says Russia’ll be the country we shall have to watch as time goes on, he’s reight. You see the trouble is when you adopt sommat you try to force it on everyone else, you think yours is reight and you try to force and they’re trying to do the same now. They’re grabbing all these here African countries. They’re giving ‘em guns and what not to murder one another, aye, rotten. Stalls me, I’m fed up wi’ it.
What do you think ought to be done then Billy? Leave ‘em on their own you know, leave them to find their own.
R-Well it’s best to find their own level because it’s only happen a handful that’s raving it up and if you start to find ‘em guns they’re up and down shooting people, first bugger that comes in sight. They’re going back a hundred years is a lot of ‘em there when they were eating one another. They find fault wi’ us for colonising but we’ve done away wi’ a lot of disease. We’ve sprayed them mosquito areas and we’ve stopped ‘em frae eating one another, we stopped ‘em all them old customs that were barbarous. I know we didn’t do it for nowt, we wanted trade, that’s what built the Empire up and we spent it wi’ war, fighting wars, and it’s gone. We’ve spent it and it’s all blown up in th’air, it’s terrible, it is. Colossal waste is war, it could be used in sommat better but what can you do. There’s nowt as ridiculous to me as war, blowing one another up. Making weapons that can shoot more folk wi’ pulling a trigger. By God, rotten when you come to think about it. Aye, now th’Arabs are feighting one another now. That’s best they want, to kill all thereselves off. They’re coming over here now kicking hell up, aye.
How about Ireland Billy?
R-Well, it’s a religious job is that you know, that IRA you know, it’s awful. It’s all, they start you know, preaching against the authorities you know, there’s allus sommat wrong. They’re murdering innocent folk. To me it’s terrible. I know that Ireland, they want t’lot, they want Ulster you know, all cementing. That’s natural but you see there’s three quarters on ‘em doesn’t want it are you barn to force them to go in to be ruled wi’ some they don’t want? You see that’s the point.
Aye. Can you ever remember the time Billy when Ireland wasn’t a problem?
R-Well I can tell of the time when it was ruled under us you know. They were agitating for Home Rule you know. They were traitors to us during the war you know, Roger Casement you know, they harboured him. And they’re coming across here in hundreds is th’Irish folk to get their living among us. Aye, we’re soft, we let everyone come in here, aye we’re soft, but there’s that many problems today, well you think, you give it up you know. But God made us like we are, there isn’t two that has the same opinions and they’re at it you know. Instead of accepting t’majority, do you see, when you’re sat round a table you should accept t’majority and abide by it but they’re allus kicking bother up you see because they’ve getten licked you see, they don’t like it. By God me pipe’s gone now, I don’t know.
Eh God Billy, th’art having trouble. Where’s it gone, here you are, here it is Billy.
R-You know I’ve allus thought about sweet reasonableness. Wi’ owt, half an apple’s better than no apple you see. If I could get me own , if I had an idea and I could get half of it going, better than none you see but they want t’lot or else nowt you see. You can offer these IRA owt but there’s nowt’ll suit ‘em nobbut their own rule, that’s what it is. Aye, if we had to give Ulster ower into Ireland there’s th’IRA there just the same. It ‘ud find something else to grumble about you know, they’d be antagonistic to t’government of the day you know, that’s the way they are you know. And still t’government of the day is sent in by the electors you see. But they don’t want to accept that you know. It’s all a question of playing to t’gallery, they want power, that’s where it is you see.. They want some power, they’re them sort of folk. They don’t like to be ordinary sort of citizens. They want to be in power you know, they want everybody to cheer ‘em you know and all that stuff, aye. Is these yours? [Billy has picked my matches up!]
No, you’re reight Billy
R-Are they mine?
No, no, they’re mine but stick to them, you’ve run out haven’t you?
R-Aye.
Stick to ‘em, it won’t be long before I’m going.
R-Well you know there’s that many problems today.
You say that Billy, do you think there’s more problems now than there used to be?
R-Aye, a lot, aye there were, in those days there weren’t these, all this upsetting and what not.
Aye, and how about, apart from politics and th’international situation and what not, ordinary life, do you think there were less problems in ordinary life in your younger days.
R-Well it went on quietly in a humdrum sort of way you know and people were satisfied wi’ what they had because they couldn’t get no more you see. So they were settled down to their self that they couldn’t get any more you see. And they made the best of what they had. They cut their coat according to their cloth you see, they wouldn’t do that today. They get everything that they want today, you see how it gets…… aye.
Yes. And of course in them days, say you’d been reasonably lucky like, as you’ve said quite a few times, if someone had a fair family like, you know, say three or four lads, and they were tipping up, they bought their own house. I mean really, that was the limit of those people’s ambitions wasn’t it, to be able to buy their own house and be in a job and be able to have just enough. In those days there wasn’t all this advertising was there, showing people what they could have.
R-You know in the old days folk used to go to their work and they tried to do a good day’s work. They tried to do a good day’s work you see, there were no clock-watching you know, wanting ower time and getting off home. They simply , they accepted the way they’d been brought up you see. Now, it’s swung too far has t’pendulum. It’s swung a bit too far you see, aye. You see if you and me had to put five hundred apiece into owt and started a bit of a business you know and built it up, you see the unions, these here that are working for you, they start making bother you know. You’re doing well and making a good profit and you sack a man for doing wrong, all out you see! That’s way it is today, a boss daren’t, he isn’t a boss today.
And what do you think’s t’cause of that Billy? What’s caused that situation to arise?
R-Well it might be that they’ve been preached to you see by these unions. Union tells ‘em that they aren’t getting enough. They’re getting a big fat wage you see is th’union secretary and if things go on without any bother they think he’s doing nowt for his brass so he has to start telling ‘em that they ought to be paid more than what they are, so that starts it off you see. Same as in a mill, If you’re a manager and you’re a good manager and you keep folk happy, sometimes somebody, t’boss might think well I don’t think there’s work for this chap like, there’s no bother about owt you see, but it’s him that’s causing [responsible for the smooth running] it you see. It’s him that’s looking at a thing, aye. It’s him that’s welding it together, there’s all sorts of ways of looking at a thing, aye. Now you might have another manager and there’s allus some bother cropping up you see. You’ve to have diplomacy to deal wi’ folk. Mony a time, mony a time you can sooth a man down by talking nicely to him instead of playing bloody hell fire. Get thi bloody hook out of here, th’art a nuisance! Or something like that. I dare say there’s lots of strikes caused wi’ that you know, they don’t use diplomacy you see. I don’t say that they’re all alike but….. Hey, we could talk all night about these things.
Oh aye, well it’s interesting listening to you talk Billy.
R-Now Brooks, they gave a hint more than once, they said You’ll not want to walk around a tape all yer life and they gave me a hint that I should be manager sometime. But there, sommat cropped up and they didn’t want to pay a manager a big wage you see and if I’d been made manager they’d have had to pay me a big wage, what I’d been making as a taper you see. They took the view that you’d nowt to do hadn’t a manager, you know, be dressed up, and they didn’t like that. That stopped it, it stood in my way did that you see, aye. Now they offered the cut-looker t’manager’s job because he’d nobbut get a cut-looker’s wage you see, aye. Now that were t’way it were, that stopped me from getting to be a manager did that. I’d too big a wage.
So that meant that down at Westfield they made a cut-looker the manager?
R-It would have done if he’d have taken it but he says Aye, but I’ll want more brass, so they donked it, he wouldn’t tek it. He telled me hisself, aye, but they’d hinted to me a time or two, if they’d come to me and said you can be manager if you take less wage. They might have said that, I don’t know.
But anyway, you never did get to be manager.
R-No, but when I telled him I were barn to leave he said you might have telled me. I said I’m telling you first, I only bought the business yesterday. I says You’re the first man I’m telling. He said Well, you might have told me.
SCG/Tuesday, 03 April 2001
4850 words.